


The Grim

by gnoodle_studios



Category: Original Work
Genre: Demons, Found Family, Hellhounds, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25021003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnoodle_studios/pseuds/gnoodle_studios
Summary: A hellhound sent to track down a dead man walking wanders into a town, and is promptly adopted by the resident old lady. Chaos ensues as a creature of fire and darkness adapts to simple village life.
Kudos: 11





	1. The One Where Many Things Are Neither Rock Nor Fire

**Author's Note:**

> So this whole thing is based on an idea I had at 3am and really wanted to flesh out and just sort of accidentally adapted into a whole work.

In a small town, steeped in myth and superstition, a man was on the run.  
Not from bandits, or the law, but from something more… nefarious. The people around him can tell; by the way he always looks over his shoulder, by the way he says he’s only staying for a few days before he needs to move on.  
The local gossips say he’s running from the devil.

They’re almost right.

Technically, he’s running from the afterlife, after cheating death and hell in one fell swoop.

If you wanted to get _really_ technical about it, he’s currently running from a hellhound with no particular name, and one of the many demons assigned to handle the hellhounds, who got handed his particular case file. But the man doesn’t know this.  
All he knows is that if he runs far enough and fast enough away from that town, he might get out of all this alive.

(He’s almost right)

\------------------------------------

Miles on miles away, in a field, a pair of glowing red eyes open.

The hellhound has never seen land before, at least not like this.

In the afterlife, there was just quite a lot of rocks, and quite a lot of fire, and even a substantial amount of firey rock, and rivers of lava and sharp, jutting edges that would skewer you if you weren’t careful enough.

But this place was.. soft. And green.

There was no fire, and no large, black, pointy rocks, just stretching horizons of blue above the hellhound, and below it; long, green… _soft_ rocks?

It watched as a large buzzing… something (flying rock?) landed on some nearby Green (with some yellow at the top? These were strange rocks indeed) and danced around for a bit before flying away to another nearby Green (this one had blue bits?). The hellhound nosed forward to follow it. The small, flying rock noticed it had something stalking after it and took off, ducking between the bendy green bits. The hellhound, excited, chased after it. It couldn’t really generate any kind of logical reason to go with this, but dismissed that fact as irrelevant and continued prancing on.

It got bored with the flying rock after a few minutes and started sniffing around. All of this _flying_ and being _green_ and _yellow_ and _soft_ business seemed very uncharacteristic for a rock. It could be fire, perhaps? Fire tickled like the Green when hellhound was standing in it, and fire could be blue sometimes. However, the hellhound had never seen fire be green before, and it wasn’t warm like fire was.

The hellhound paced worriedly in a circle and eventually came to the conclusion that maybe there was more to life than Rock and Fire.

Eventually, after the hellhound had come to grips with this world-shattering realization, (and rolling around in the not-rocks, just to be sure) it remembered that it was here for a reason.

Missions like this were rare. Few humans saw the point in bothering to enter any kind of deal with the afterlife, and those who did weren’t stupid enough to break it. Except for now. The hellhounds were mostly used as security, patrolling borders between life and the afterlife, making sure nobody escaped. But now that there was a deal-breaker loose, it fell to one of them to track him down.

Sniffing the air, it could tell its target had been in the area recently. Following its nose to where the scent was stronger, the hellhound stumbled out of the not-rocks (grass seemed a good name as any) and onto a path.

Now, _this_ was familiar. This was definitely rocks. Just very, very small rocks. That were somehow so small they were almost soft?

Hellhound didn’t think it would ever understand this place.

However, hellhound wasn’t there to understand, it was there on a mission. (...A mission that didn’t necessarily prevent it from taking a second to roll in the small almost-soft rocks).

Finding the scent once again, hellhound trotted along the path, occasionally stopping to sniff some of the “grass” that had other strange colors on top.

At some point, a small creature jumped out in front of the hellhound and froze. Hellhound looked at it. It was white and had fur that looked somewhat similar to his own, but also with a small round tail and larger, rounded ears that twitched as the two creatures watched each other.

Hellhound waited for the inevitable claws or pointed teeth to reveal themselves, but they never did. The creature relaxed and hopped forward to butt against one of his legs, before moving back into the grass.

The hellhound, thoroughly confused by this, elected to keep moving.

He hoped he wouldn’t have any other strange encounters while he was here.  
\------------------------------------

Down in the afterlife, a certain demon could feel himself beginning to develop a headache. Previously unaware that demons could have headaches, he couldn’t help but think maybe this was a bad sign.

\------------------------------------

After following the path for a while (and discovering all sorts of things that weren’t rocks), the hellhound found a road. The target’s scent moved east down the road, so it went east. There were other people moving on the road, but most gave it a wide berth or ignored it completely. Some stared in fear and whispered at each other worriedly.

The hellhound figured this must be because it had messed up its fur rolling in things. Of course, it couldn’t have anything to do with its glowing red eyes or general aura of darkness!

Every hellhound had those, after all.

The loose, small rocks turned into solid, large rocks as the road passed through a town. The hellhound looked around with increased dubiousness as it was revealed to it how much of this world wasn't rock or fire.

There _were_ houses made of stone, large smooth gray ones, but also others made of something he couldn’t quite place but decided to call ‘wood’ for the sake of his internal monologue.

There were also market stalls built out of ‘wood’, littered with many things the hellhound couldn't even fathom the use of, much less the material.

The target’s trail eventually picked back up on the road leading out of the town, but something made the hellhound hesitant to follow.

It.. couldn't _hurt_ , could it? Just looking around?

It was being thorough! That was it. Just.. _really_ checking that the mark had left for good.

It sniffed the air, finding itself (not for the first time) distracted by a smell. The smell promised warmth, like fire, and comfort, like not-rocks, and maybe even a slight dampening of the darkness-aura.

And while, in theory, hellhounds were tireless tracking and killing machines that could go without sleep or food or shelter, that didn’t stop it from wanting at least _one_ of those things.  
The hellhound moved closer.

\------------------------------------

The woman who owned the bakery and was currently manning the outdoor stall side-eyed a large black dog as it moved closer. She was a large woman, with broad shoulders and solid arms from years of kneading dough. She intimidated most who came to the bakery, including the occasional animal hoping to steal a loaf of bread.

This did not appear to be the case for the aforementioned dog. Side eyeing _harder_ , she realized the dog had something that looked like glowing red eyes. The town had a few long-standing myths about grims, evil spirits who would wreak havoc and destroy entire livelihoods. However, the baker was not one to buy into such foolish stories.

And even if she was, she had had stranger customers.

However, she was less forgiving when it came to _thieves_.

The black dog moved forward, considerably faster than it should have been able to for something of its size.

But not fast enough.

The woman growled and snatched away the loaf it had been going for. The dog whined and rested its head on the table where the bread had been and looked at her like it hadn't quite decided whether to threaten or beg.

“Bad dog,” She said firmly, gently pushing its head off the table “Get lost.”

The dog accepted this without much of a fight and moved off, head down.

It looked like a well-fed dog, the baker rationalized.

Surely its owner would come to retrieve it soon.

\------------------------------------

In the afterlife, the demon rubbed roughly where temples would be on a human as a dull ache took up residence behind his eyes.

\------------------------------------

_Bad dog? Bad dog? Bad dog?_

The sentence repeated in the hellhound’s head like a mantra. It shouldn't stick as much as it did, hellhounds technically weren’t even dogs!

_And she had growled at it! That was its move!_

As the hellhound pondered, clouds that had been gathering overhead darkened, and it started to rain.

_What could she have possibly meant by ‘bad do-’..._

There was something falling from the sky.

By all accounts, this should be a _bad thing_.

When it happened where the hellhound was from, it was usually fire falling through the sky, and any humans down there always seemed terrified by it.

But here… now… they just seemed… annoyed? Like it was some minor inconvenience at best? The hellhound looked up and a drop of whatever it was landed on its nose.

This was not fire.

Fire was warm and nice and dry. This was the opposite of what fire was. This was cold and wet and was already seeping into its fur.

It looked around and ran towards a small covered shelter with nobody else inside, and shook off, splattering the not-fire everywhere. It paced in a circle and curled up, listening to the sound it made on the roof.

_Bad dog. Bad dog. Bad dog._

The words seemed to echo with the drumming noise.

The hellhound curled tighter.

It did not want to be a bad dog.

\------------------------------------

“Oh, you poor thing.”

The hellhound looked up at the voice. It was an elderly old woman, short with a bob of gray hair and a small army of scarves wrapped around her neck. She was holding some sort of contraption that caused the water to slide off of it and not touch the woman at all. Like a mini, portable roof.

“You look so cold! Where is your owner? He shouldn’t leave his dog out like this!”

The hellhound lifted its head to watch her.

She paused.

“Or do you not have one? I suppose that would make sense.”

She contemplated the dog before her, apparently deep in thought

With strange timing, it’s stomach growled. This seemed to offend her, in the sense that ‘how dare anyone be hungry in her presence’.

“That won’t do at all! Come on, pup, let’s get you somewhere warm and dry and get you some food.”

The hellhound reluctantly uncurled itself and moved to the edge of the shelter.

“Good boy,” said the woman, moving away and beckoning further.

The hellhound’s tail moved suddenly and with a mind of its own, rapidly going back and forth.

Hesitantly, it moved away from the shelter and followed the old woman home.

The not-fire continued to fall from the sky and drum patterns into the surrounding roofs.  
It seemed to have a different melody this time.

_Good boy. Good boy. Good boy._

The hellhound didn’t mind that one so much.


	2. The One Where Good Smells Abound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hellhound gets a bed, some food, a name, and maybe even a home?

The old lady lived nearby, in a short, square building made of stone  _ and _ wood. 

The not-fire continued to fall from the sky as the hellhound trotted after the old lady. As soon as they reached the aforementioned building, the woman carefully folded her portable roof and opened the door, beckoning it inside. The hellhound stood on the welcome mat just inside and dripped sulkily. 

“Stay there for a moment, will you?” the old lady said, walking further into her house. She retrieved a flowy rectangle and draped it over him, using it to soak up the not-fire that was forming a puddle around it. 

“That rain really was something, huh? It hasn’t rained that hard in years.”

Hellhound narrowed its eyes.  _ Rain _ . Its enemy had a name. 

It glanced over to a spot of the house that was inexplicably see-through and glared at the rain, its eyes glowing a slightly brighter shade of red.

The old lady patted him on the head a few times, effectively breaking his glare. 

“There we go, all dried off. Let’s get a fire started and warm this place up, what do you say?”

She shambled over to a pile of wood and began steadily moving a few into a large recess set in the side of the house, coated in ash. A few minutes later, there was a small fire blazing in the empty space. 

It was different from the fire in the afterlife. That fire was big and angry and liked to destroy things. This fire was… comfortable. And cozy. It smelled like a Home, whatever that was.

The hellhound moved forward to lie down in it, as hellhounds do, when the old lady placed a grate down in front of its bed. 

“Wouldn’t want you to burn yourself,” she offered cheerfully. “I’ll get you some pillows to sleep on for tonight. Tomorrow… ” She trailed off uncertainly. Afraid the human might be broken, the hellhound lightly poked her with its nose. She smiled and patted its head again. 

The hellhound decided it liked head pats, and added them to the somewhat short list of things it liked, which included Good Smells, Green Not-Fire, Fire, and Home. The hellhound wasn’t entirely sure what the last one was, but it had a feeling and some smells to go off and when it came down to it, wasn’t that really all you needed? 

While the hellhound had been considering what it did and didn’t like so far, the lady had gathered some larger rectangles and set them on the ground. These ones were… poofier than the one from earlier. Thinking back, it vaguely remembered her calling them ‘pillows’? Or something similar, at least.

The hellhound turned in a circle to further evaluate these ‘pillows’, before its legs suddenly stopped working beneath it and it sort of… fell over? Into the pillows. Which were nice, and soft, and not much like fire at all but they were comfortable and close enough to the fire that it was still warm, and as it settled its head down it figured that sleeping in pillows for just one night couldn’t be all that bad. 

The old lady sat in a chair and watched him before sighing and putting her head in her hands for a moment. “Edith, what are you doing? Don’t get attached, he probably has an owner. And taking care of a dog… I don’t know if I can even...” 

The hellhound looked up as she trailed off again. Once again worrying this meant something bad was happening to the human, it (he? She had called him a ‘he’. Did he want to be a he, instead of an it? Maybe he wanted to be a he.) stood up and set his head in her lap. The human (Was her name Edith?) smiled again. (That was getting dangerously close to being put on the ‘like’ list) and scratched his ears. 

“Good boy.” 

His tail once again started to move back and forth, completely without his permission.

“We should get you some dinner, shouldn’t we?” She stood up from the chair, joints and wood creaking alike. She walked over to a box that smelled like fire and something else he couldn’t quite place. 

The hellhound stalked behind her, trying to puzzle out the contraption. Before he could solve it, Edith opened a hatch in the side and grabbed thick squares of something similar to what she had used to dry him off earlier and used them to pull out whatever had been in the fire-box. 

The hellhound was in love.

He thought be had smelled good things before. This surpassed all of them.

“You look excited,” Edith noted, amused. “The butcher gave me a chicken in payment for some baby shoes I knitted for his newborn. Cute little thing. His older brother is a menace though.” 

The hellhound belatedly realized he was drooling on the floor. Edith either didn’t notice or didn’t mind and began carving the chicken into slices, setting some on a plate and some in a bowl, which she then placed on the ground for him.

“It really is nice, having someone to talk to. An old lady like me often goes unnoticed or disregarded, you have no idea the number of secrets I have about the people in this town.”

She carried the plate over to a nearby table and sat down. “I guess that only matters If you end up sticking around, huh?”

The hellhound finished what was in the bowl and sat down next to the old lady, staring at her intently.

“Your puppy eyes need some work, dog. You look like you’re going to glare a hole in the table.”

The hellhound cocked its head. ‘Puppy eyes’? That certainly wasn’t a term he had heard before, but the way Edith had referred to it made it seem like it was some sort of evil deed meant to separate objects from their owners. Apparently he had not yet mastered this nefarious doing, but it must be useful!

Vaguely, the hellhound remembered he should be tracking down a running soul. But Edith reached out and scratched behind his ears again and he quickly reconsidered.

_ Now wait a minute, let’s not be hasty. There were many skills he had yet to learn before he would be ready for this difficult mission! Like puppy eyes! And how to defeat his mortal enemy;  _ **_rain._ **

The large black dog stared into space as Edith scratched its ears, before coming to and plopping down next to her. 

Edith was not a weak woman. She had held her own against her nemesis, Agnes, for years. Not to mention losing her husband before that, watching her children move away, and dealing with a town of people she had watched grow up, who would dismiss her as soon as help her. So no, she wasn't weak, but she was… well, it wasn't lonely, exactly. But it  _ had _ been several years since she’d had anyone to really talk to, even if the most recent prospect was just a very large black dog that may be more trouble than he was worth.

He looked up at her, head in paws, clearly hoping for more chicken. Something in Edith’s chest twinged. It wasn't a heart attack, she knew that much, but it may have been just as serious. 

She was attached.

“If I let you stay with me, will you be good?”

_ Good! Good! Good! _

Hellhound liked that word, and as a result, he lifted his head up and his tail once again metronomed back and forth rapidly, slamming between two wooden surfaces.

_ Well, this may be a good a sign as any _ , thought Edith as the dog’s tail attempted to beat a chair leg into submission.

“Alright, you can stay. But no running off, my old heart can’t take it. Tomorrow we’ll take a trip into town and get you a collar and a bed.” 

Edith got up to place the dishes in the sink and the dog scrambled out of her way. She paused a moment. If she was keeping him, she really needed to find something to call him other than ‘the dog’.

“You need a name, don’t you?”

The hellhound cocked his head. A name? That sounded new. He didn’t think he’d ever had a name before. Except for ‘good boy’, which he didn’t think really counted.

Edith pondered for a moment. She briefly considered ‘Shadow’ or something like it as a name, which would match up to his coat color, but somehow didn’t fit the dog. He certainly wasn’t stealthy or quiet like a shadow, and seemed to move his body with no regard for the space around him. In fact, the way he picked up his legs when he walked and the habit of just flopping onto the ground reminded her of a certain animal she had seen at a farm many years ago. ...he was about the right size, anyway.

“How about Horse?”

Horse wagged his tail, this time on purpose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a kudos and a comment if you liked it! Next chapter should be up next wednesday, if I dont get too side-tracked. I dont know if anyone's gonna be finding me through Ao3 but if you are, tumblr is @gnoodle-studios


	3. The One Where the Baker is Not A Stupid Woman

When the hellhound, no _ , Horse _ , woke up the next morning, it took him a moment to figure out that the day before hadn’t been a dream. He was still sprawled over a vast expanse of pillows, though the fire had gone out several hours earlier. 

Looking around, he didn’t find Edith. He momentarily panicked before remembering she had gone through a movable part of the wall. He extracted himself from the pile and got to his feet. The wall slid back and Edith emerged, wearing a long coat made of something very, very soft looking, and slippers that reminisced of the creature he had seen out in the field.

“Morning, Horse,” Edith greeted cheerfully. “Let’s get some breakfast and then we’ll head into town, how does that sound?”

Horse wagged his tail in agreement. 

  
  


It was no longer raining when they went outside, which must have been a good sign. Edith walked forward in large boots and a thick sweater and Horse trailed behind her. 

Then he misstepped, and the world ended, as he was powerless to do anything but watch. 

He could feel the cold embrace of death creeping up his leg, spreading through his body like a poison. He said his goodbyes to the sun and the large blue and all of the things he had learned about recently, like grass and wood and pillows. 

It would come to take him any second, he was sure.

“Aww, did you step in a puddle?”

Horse blinked. And lifted his foot out of the small pool that had gathered in a pothole. To his immense surprise, it was still there. 

“Come along, Horse. It’s just some water”

Testing the weight, he determined it was still functional and started to follow Edith once more. _Water?_ _Maybe he had underestimated his opponent_. Apparently it not only fell from the sky but could also be gathered on the ground for unsuspecting hellhounds to fall into. 

_ As nice as this place seemed, there was danger lurking around every corner. _

\------------------------

Edith was pleasantly surprised. Horse was following her without any problems and didn’t run off to sniff anything or go to chase any animals. He had accidentally stepped in a puddle and spent the rest of the walk moping, but other than that he was extremely well behaved. They would see if this continued as they entered the main road where a good portion of the shops were located. 

The smell of fresh-baked bread drifted through the marketplace and Edith glanced over at the bakery. Pastries were displayed in neat little rows, including one kind with chocolate she was particularly partial to. 

Breakfast had been somewhat small, and who was she to deny herself in her old age? 

\----------------------------------

The smell was back. The one he had noticed the day before and had gotten him called a bad dog. To his horror, Edith began walking in that direction, heading directly for the woman who had yelled at him. Reluctantly, Horse followed her.

\-----------------------------

The baker watched as two familiar figures approached. Both instigated a quiet dread at the base of her stomach, for very different reasons. Edith was well known through the village, and mostly well-liked, but she had been there longer than the baker had been alive, and while she tended to be amenable, the old woman definitely had a… vicious side. 

As for the second figure… the baker squinted. Was that the dog from the day before? In the morning light, it was clear that the dog’s eyes were  _ definitely _ glowing red, and its claws reflected light in a strange way that suggested they were very sharp. 

She opened her mouth to warn Edith of the potential danger stalking her when the old lady looked back and beckoned for it to follow.

The baker closed her mouth, because she was not a stupid woman.

Edith ordered a chocolate pastry and struck up a conversation, which the baker was only half focused on. The rest of her was focused on the dog, who appeared to be… hiding behind Edith? Or at least trying, it was considerably bigger than she was and so the effect was similar to that of someone trying to hide a watermelon behind a stick. 

“I see you are interested in Horse,” Edith said. 

The baker blinked. It took her a moment to connect the word to the dog. __

_ Horse? You named that thing Horse? _ She considered for a minute.  _ It fit, in a strange way. _

The rest of the question caught up to her. 

_ “Yeah, it’s huge and has red eyes, and I’m pretty sure its some kind of otherworldly creature,” _ she did not say. 

_ “It’s making me rethink the ‘myth’ status of those Grim tales mothers tell their children,” _ she did not say. 

_ “Bastard tried to steal my bread,” _ she did not say. 

She did not say any of those things, because there was a hard glint in Edith’s eyes, and a concealed hint of danger in her tone, and because she wasn’t a stupid woman  _ at all _ . So she went with the safe answer.

“I saw him around yesterday.”

Edith relaxed slightly and so did the baker

“Yes, poor thing got caught out in the rain so I decided to take him in.”

“Are you keeping… Horse?”

“Yes. I figure some companionship would do me good.”

The baker couldn’t argue with that. (Nor did she particularly want to.)

“You should probably get him a collar, so people know he belongs to you.”  _ And don’t run him away with pitchforks _ , she added in her head. 

“Yes, we’re going to visit the leatherworker after this.”

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. Have a good day!”

“You too.”

And with that, Edith wandered off with Horse on her heels.

_ That dog seems oddly well trained. I wonder if he ran away from someone? Hopefully whoever it was doesn’t come looking for him.  _

_ I think I’d rather jump off a bridge than go toe to toe with Edith.  _

\----------------------------

The demon groaned as The Headache stabbed into him. He had taken to calling it The Headache instead of just  _ a _ headache because it  _ wasn’t _ multiple headaches. It was  _ one _ that kept  _ coming back _ . And it felt… targeted. The demon lightly banged his head against his desk. 

Shockingly, this did not help.

\----------------------------

Horse continued to follow after Edith as she navigated through the streets, careful to avoid any more puddles. He was slightly less careful about running into other people, but they were all nice enough to give him a lot of room. Someone even jumped out of his way!

Edith would occasionally rope passersby into a conversation, asking about the business or the children. A few of them watched Horse out of the corner of their eye, but he figured it must be because he was new in town. 

As they moved forward, Edith and horse eventually came to a building with an open door and sounds of hammering coming from inside. 

“Hello Jerald,” Edith called out as she stepped inside the doorframe. Horse lingered outside for a moment before trotting in after her.

“Hullo Edith. What can I do for you?” It turned out Jerald was a fairly large man, with an apron and holding various tools that looked very similar to things used in a  _ certain part _ of the afterlife. 

“I need a collar for my dog.”

This made the man pause. He leaned over a little bit to get a better look at Horse, who had drifted behind Edith. 

“When did you get a dog?”

“Last night.”

“Alright. What’s his name?”

“Horse.”

Jerald nodded in approval. “Makes sense. You need a leash and harness too or just the collar?”

Edith considered. “Just a collar, I think. He’s been very well behaved so far”

Jerald nodded and grabbed a measuring tape off of the shelf.

Horse tried to back away as Jerald approached, but stopped at a look from Edith. 

The leatherworker took several measurements and instructed Edith to come back the next day.

Edith thanked him and both woman and hellhound set off again.

Horse almost ran straight into Edith as she stopped short, and just managed to avoid toppling her over.

When he looked up to see the reason for the sudden halt, he saw a woman that looked to be the same age as Edith, but taller and more slender, and Edith herself locked in some kind of stare-off.

“Hello, Agnes,” Edith said, in a way that could almost be interpreted as ‘pleasant’ except for the lack of anything ‘pleasant’ behind her eyes as she looked at the taller woman. 

“Edith,” Agnes replied with just as much venom.

Horse wondered just what he had gotten himself into. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment and/or kudos if you liked it! I'm pretty active on tumblr if you want to check me out there (@gnoodle-studios)


	4. The One Where Forces Clash

“Agnes!” said Edith, with the enthusiasm of someone recently told they have to eat a slug. “How… pleasant to see you again.”

“Of course,” replied Agnes. “Haven’t seen you around much though, I must admit. You aren’t sequestering yourself in that house of yours, are you? I would be devastated to learn the loneliness of an empty home is catching up to you.”

“I so appreciate your concern for my health, my dear, but I assure you I am faring just fine! I have simply been spending quite a lot of time on my latest crochet project!”

Agnes narrowed her eyes, almost imperceptibly. “A crochet project? Of what kind?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard already? The milliner is having another child! I’ve been crafting a blanket, I’m sure it will be ready by the time they give birth. I had no idea you were so far out of the loop, dear Agnes, or I would have informed you myself!”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” Agnes replied cooly. “It is so unfortunate you haven’t the time to keep up with old friends, but I suppose I haven’t put much effort in on my end. Perhaps I could bring over my recipe for raspberry scones one of these days! You never could get them quite right, from what I remember.”

Horse looked back and forth between the two women, feeling a bit scared. As he glanced back to Edith, He had to rescind one of his earliest discoveries about this place. While it was true that many things in this world were not Rock or Fire, it turned out that sometimes the Rock and Fire disguised itself. And now, it appeared they may have been disguising themselves as humans. 

Which, in retrospect, explained why Horse had liked Edith so much. She was very much made of Fire, even if she didn’t look it. She was nice, and warm, and sort of soft, in a strange, intangible way. Fire never hurt Horse, and neither did Edith, but Fire always had a preference for hellhounds, and then went on to burn humans and wood and sometimes even demons indiscriminately. A part of the world clicked into place, and things made just a little more sense, in Horse’s book.

But the other, the one standing across from Edith and smiling sharply, was undeniably Rock. There were angles to her, her face and her joints, like the Rock was barely trying to hide itself underneath stretched skin and pointy grins. 

Despite being thin, she seemed unmovable and steady, an element that told you exactly what it was and what it was going to do before it even did anything. 

And so Rock and Fire faced off. 

Fire is always unpredictable, and changes direction at the slightest move. Fire is hungry, and bright, and quick, and leaps on anything it can.

But Rock does not burn. It stands, unaffected, and attacks methodically, patiently, or sometimes unexpectedly, like a rockslide, burying the opponent. But Fire cannot be crushed in such a way. 

So they are at an impasse, as attacks and blocks and retaliations are made over Horse’s head, as bloody and ruthless as any battle.

Rock and Fire walk away, and Horse has no idea who won. 

  
  


\----------------

  
  


The baker knew something was going to happen as soon as Agnes and Edith locked eyes across the street. 

They had traded their barbed compliments and faked concern meant to harm instead of heal, and then had gone their separate ways, but she could tell Edith was still out for blood. As much as an old woman wearing a lace cardigan could be out for blood. 

The baker shuddered, imagining the potential destruction.

Which is why, when Edith ran into Peter, she finished the sale she was making and put the ‘on break’ sign up, before leaning back against the counter to watch the ensuing annihilation. 

Peter was not the brightest man in town. He had always been kind of an ass, even when they were all kids, and now he ran the general store, which gave him some kind of false idea of power. Knowing how to run a business, and a necessary one had gone straight to his head, and knocked out a good deal of the common sense while it was there. 

Common sense, such as ‘ _ don’t mess with Edith, or risk being burned _ ’.

Peter had taken a good look at the grim-  _ er- Horse _ , and started to walk purposefully across the square, before coming to a stop in front of Edith.

The brave (and stupid) stared, the ignorant continued on as though nothing was about to happen, and the smart watched, but in a way that made it clear they were absolutely  _ not _ watching and indeed _ keeping their noses in their own business, thank you very much.  _

The baker, knowing which group she was a part of, carefully positioned herself in a convenient shadow near one side of the stall underneath the awning, where Edith’s back would be turned to her.

Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered (or risked) being an onlooker, but it had been a good while since she had seen Edith  _ exchanging pleasantries _ with anyone, and Peter had recently raised the price of flour despite there being no good reason (he claimed ‘shipping prices’ had gone up but she had checked with the man who delivered goods to their town from the nearest port, who had said shipping was cheaper than ever), and she figured she should keep an eye on that dog of Edith’s and how it was going to react to a git like Peter. And who knows? Maybe she would learn something. 

“Hello there Edith,” said Peter, walking somewhere between a saunter and a strut. 

“Peter, so nice to see you again,” replied Edith, who looked and sounded very sincere about this statement, except for how much she  _ didn’t _ .

“I see you picked up a mutt!” Peter laughed loudly and obnoxiously, throwing his head back.

Edith did not join him.

Peter, demonstrating all the intelligence of a brick wall, barreled on. 

“My gods, woman, where did you find that thing? A gutter? I didn’t know the boogeyman was moving in next door, much less that he had a dog!”

In an amazing display of restraint, Edith neglected to throttle the man. Not that she could if she tried, though. Peter wasn’t a very large man, but he also had a bit of height and weight over Edith. Still, the baker found that retirees had quite a lot of time to sit and think, which could be a dangerous thing, especially where people as sharp as Edith, and surrounded by as many idiots as Edith, are concerned, and so she figured the old lady could probably have figured something out. 

However, as it stood, Edith found a good deal of her weapons in words, and as she straightened up and cleared her throat, it was clear she was skipping past all of the pretty little daggers in front and some of the smaller swords, even the larger swords, perhaps a spear or two, and heading directly for the morningstar.

“I suppose it would be hard for you to keep track of new residents these days, what with how often I’ve seen you visiting the doctors.” Edith shook her head sadly. “Are you sick, dear? I’m sure many in the town would be happy to help you out.”

Peter flushed from his fingertips to the top of his ears. 

To anyone outside the gossip chain in town, it would have sounded like a fairly innocuous statement, even like Edith was perhaps concerned about his general wellbeing. However, the baker had a friend who worked at the doctor’s office as a nurse, and had it on fairly good authority that the receptionist and Peter had been… sharing several  _ intimate _ moments together, sometimes even while the receptionist was on duty. The baker wasn’t about to judge two adults entering a consensual relationship, even if the nature of the relationship may be considered a bit ‘scandalous’, but for the love of  _ someone _ , do it on your own time, not on the clock! A house was a house, and a business was a business, and the actions of the two shouldn’t get mixed, in the baker’s firm opinion.

“What are you trying to imply?” asked Peter defensively. 

He had never been good at playing the game. 

The back and forth insults disguised as compliments and simple comments that people such as Edith and Agnes spent their time with, trading cutting remarks back and forth until both women were satisfied with their jabs, and sore with their losses.

Many of the townspeople stayed out of it, and the ones who did were heavily persuaded not to try it again (Edith and Agnes combining forces was a rare thing, but a thing to be feared. It was like two natural disasters turning to smite the same person). 

Then, there were the people like Peter who didn’t realize there was a game being played in the first place, and so blundered into traps without even knowing there had been one set in the first place. 

“Imply, my dear? What could I possibly have been implying? I was simply questioning if you were poorly.” She laughed easily. “It’s not like I said you were up to anything illicit.”

Peter looked like his skin was attempting to color-match a tomato.

For the first time, the baker noticed how uneasy Horse looked. She couldn’t blame him. Being in the middle of a battle of wits (even if this one wasn’t so much a battle as a destruction) happens to be very unnerving. 

One of the first times the baker saw such a battle, it had been between Edith and one of her school teachers, the latter of which had dragged the baker into it for some reason or another.

The whole experience made her vow to stay as far away as those types of situations as possible, and it looked like Horse was considering doing the same.

  
  


In an un-earned and potentially life-saving act of mercy, Jerald, the blacksmith, stepped in.

“Hullo, hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I finished that collar you wanted.”

“Oh, really?” Edith asks, any trace of hostility disappearing immediately. “So soon?”

“Didn’t take too long. And I had a delay on one of my other projects.”

“Well, thank you very much.” Edith took the collar from Jerald and fastened it around Horse’s neck. Horse froze like it was going to bite him, and looked to Edith for help. 

“You look very nice,” She told him, and patted his head. He settled a little, but still seemed apprehensive.

“ _ Wellmustbegoingtalklater _ ” Peter rushed out, turning quickly.

The baker watched as Peter all but tucked tail and ran. Edith looked around, smiling politely.

She shivered.

  
  


“PUPPY!” 

From across the street, there was a loud yell from a tiny child who looked intent on pulling her mother’s arm off. 

“Now, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Sarah,” the mother protested, trying to hold her child back. 

The child threw her weight forward with renewed force and broke free of her mother’s grasp before running up to Edith and Horse.

“Can I pet your dog, miss?” She asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. 

Edith gave her an approving smile. “Of course.”

Sarah, seemingly vibrating with excitement, started to scratch the dog’s ears and pet along his back. To her delight, her hand sunk into his fur until it almost disappeared.

_ Grims are apparently built for insulation, _ the baker noted absently.

“He’s so soft!” the child exclaimed. ”What’s his name?”

“Horse,” replied Edith, still smiling indulgently. 

The child contemplated this for a long moment, taking on on an air of seriousness and sincerity that only children of that age can properly manage without looking uptight. 

She nodded, just as seriously. “Horse is a good name.”

Edith produced a piece of candy from thin air, (or so it seemed to the baker) and offered it to the child, who took it and went bounding off back to her mother, who looked very tired, and a bit relieved.

“Goodbye Horse!” Sarah said, waving, before dragging her mother in a different direction. 

  
  


\-------------

  
  


The small human was different from what Horse had seen before. It was much… bouncier. 

And louder. 

And stickier. 

Despite all of these things, it had given very good ear scratches, and Edith had seemed pleased with it, so Horse figured it wasn't so bad. 

The ‘collar’ was new, and not very pleasant, but more pleasant than some of the factors that came with existing in the afterlife (most of which, such as the fire, had little to no effect on hellhounds, but there were still the rocks, which could be very sharp, and there were a lot of very large, very angry, and very loud things that were also not very nice), so Horse figured it was an okay trade-off.

With this particular train of thought, Horse discovered that without realizing it, he had made the decision to stay in the town. 

On closer inspection, it made sense. Horse had a place that was Not-Rocks to sleep and live, and had found many good smells and things to eat, and an Old human who seemed very nice but also a little dangerous (like Fire!) and he came to the conclusion that this place was much better than the afterlife, and therefore he would be staying right where he was, thank you very much. 

Horse nodded with the finality and followed Edith as she led the way through the streets.

_ The afterlife could always send someone else to collect the soul he had been after. They wouldn’t even notice he was gone! _

  
  


\------------------

  
  


The demon was starting to wonder if he could function without a head. 

However, even if he could, he doubted it would help anything, as this seemed to be a  _ very _ determined headache, and he suspected the lack of a head wouldn’t really even slow it down. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting last week but we should be back on a consistent schedule? I am updating this pretty late in the day but it's still technically Wednesday so take that


	5. The One Where Edith Has A Lot To Say

Horse and Edith reached the house. As soon as the door closed behind them, Edith sagged into a large rocking chair. 

They had picked up a large, soft, round thing from a shop on their way back, which a man named Terry had offered to carry back to their house. She set it on the floor and gestured for Horse to try lying down in it. He obliged, circling a few times before throwing himself to the ground with a dull _thunk_.

Edith retrieved two pointy sticks and a ball of string and began combining all three of these things in a way that made a repetitive clacking noise.

“I’ll work on that blanket for the milliner’s son later. Knitting is much more stress-relieving, I find.” 

Horse sighed in the way that dogs sometimes do and settled his head on a paw.

Edith continued on, and Horse listened intently. Many of the things Edith was saying didn’t make complete sense, but it was obvious she was interested in what she was talking about, so Horse was too.

“Not a bad family, the milliner’s. Very good at what they do. Nice about it, too. Always package things up very neatly, and not bad in terms of quality. The last hat I bought had some lovely flowers on it, and they were surprisingly durable. Someone stepped on it by accident and it was completely intact!” She lapsed into silence before picking back up on a seemingly unrelated thread.

“Of course, he’s on his second wife now, the first died of fever a few years ago. They seem very happy together, which is good. They’re raising lovely children, too. One asked me to teach them crocheting a while ago.” Edith laughed easily. “Their first attempt ended up in a tangle. They got much better though. I wonder if they’ve made anything recently?”

Edith appeared lost in thought for a few moments before adopting a displeased expression. “Speaking of crochet. Fancy running into Agnes today. That…” She waved her hands around, still holding the pointy sticks, which made Horse extremely nervous. 

She slammed her hands back into her lap, apparently having found a suitable insult. “...insufferable woman! She always tries to get a rise out of me. We always clashed quite a bit, even when we were younger. 

And now that we’ve retired and our families have moved away we both have much more time to think these things up. Retirement can be vicious, my dear.” 

She laughed again. “My poor husband. I always joked that marrying me was also gaining a nemesis. He didn’t believe me. That is, until we clashed at our wedding. He handled the spilled drink on his suit very gracefully, though.”

Another pause. 

Edith’s mind seemed to work like a web, connecting stories and memories that flashed by so quickly nobody else would be able to catch up, or fathom what connected the two in the first place. So she took pauses, gathering her thoughts and memories and turning them into something manageable. However, this did leave her with the bad habit of sometimes neglecting to explain the relationship between certain trains of thought.

“I don’t think Agnes ever married. Or if she did it was a long time ago. I remember her adopting some children. A boy and a girl, brother and sister, I believe.” She sighed and set down the stabby sticks for a moment 

“How time flies. When did we get so old?”

Edith reached down to scratch Horse’s ears. 

“Like Peter. I remember him being a brat of a child but he’s turned into a twit of an adult. Many people in this town have made their fair share of bad decisions, but that boy has made more than one that would have his mother very disappointed in him. 

She ran the General Store very well, always made sure prices were fair. 

Hopefully someone knocks some sense into that boy before it’s too late.”

She thought back to everything they had done that morning. “I was glad to stop by the bakery this morning, at least. May, that’s the baker, makes wonderful pastries. And she’s always so respectful! I believe she rather fancies Jerald, the blacksmith. Perhaps I should do something to get them together, I think they would work out wonderfully. Jerald is a very nice man, unlike Peter. Yes, they would do very well together indeed.”

As Edith began to plot some kind of matchmaking exploit, Horse listened until he started to feel his eyes and ears droop. 

In the chair next to him, Edith seemed to be having similar thoughts and put away the clacking sticks and yarn. 

“See you in the morning, Horse.”

\------------

The demon was getting very little work done these days, because of a certain _not to be named_ ailment frequently befalling him. This was a problem, because his superior was now standing in his little one-room office with the window facing the lava river. 

Fortunately, his superior was not there because of him.

“No progress report?” Asked his superior, dumbfounded.

“Hellhound 1181 never returned from its trip to Above.”

“But… Why?”

The demon valiantly resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know.”

“Is it possible it was found by demon hunters?”

“I haven't seen anything about that, I’m pretty sure something would show up.”

“And the soul is still on the run?”

“Actually, he stalled in one of the cities, must have figured nothing was chasing him anymore.” 

“So it abandoned its target?”

“As far as I can tell, yes.”

The superior sighed. “Make sure it gets dealt with. I don’t care how, just make sure the soul is caught.”

“And the hellhound?”

The superior waved a hand dismissively and left the demon’s office. 

The demon stared at nothing for several moments before picking himself up.

“Fine,” he said to nobody.

Several minutes of sorting through files, one travel permit, and one portal jump later, the demon arrived standing in a large field of grass.

He waited for the Headache to kick in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one isn't super long and minimally edited but she's here!

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I really dont expect to get any attention, but im having fun writitng it and if you happen to find it, good for you. I'll probably be updating ~once a week. Comment or leave a kudos if you enjoyed!


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